[19291] in APO-L
Re: Responding to Jesse
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Christopher J Stromberg)
Tue Oct 6 23:37:29 1998
Date: Tue, 6 Oct 1998 22:31:42 -0500
Reply-To: Christopher J Stromberg <cstrombe@GAC.EDU>
From: Christopher J Stromberg <cstrombe@GAC.EDU>
To: APO-L@LISTSERV.IUPUI.EDU
Brothers,
I have one request, and one comment to follow that request.
First, in reference to the following statement:
> 1. "The Gentlemen's agreement". I have yet to hear from (or meet) ANYONE
> who was actually there when the agreement was hammered out who can give us
> a first hand account of what happened. Without that first-hand account,
> it's all hearsay.
I have never actually seen or heard the text of the "Gentlemen's
Agreement", either. I have heard everything from it never happened (or,
at least, not that way), to six or seven different versions of what it
contained. Here is my request. Could we get, posted to the list, the
full text of the "Gentlemen's Agreement"? I know there are some people on
this list who are pretty good at finding things like that. Please,
someone, help us all out here (especially those of us who could not be at
the 1976 convention for reasons such as not having been born yet).
Barring that, could someone WHO WAS ACTUALLY AT THE 1976
CONVENTION and has a pretty good memory enlighten us. Please, no, "I
heard it from ...". Please, only those who were actually there.
Okay, now, for my comment. As was recently pointed out, the
all-male issue is about more than maintaining a tradition. It also
includes issues of acceptance of people, regardless of their gender. It
is a cold fact that the fraternity, at a national level, allows
discrimination on the basis of gender at the 30 or so chapters who remain
all-male. Personally, I believe that this is wrong.
Tradition is important. Remembering your roots is important. But
discriminating against people on the basis of gender is WRONG, for
whatever reason. We can remember our roots, even if we change the current
conditions. Even if we do tell the all-male chapters that they need to go
co-ed (which I hope, at some point, we do), that does not change our past,
and it is not an effort to do so. It is an effort to eliminate
discrimination based on gender from this fraternity. Should we be
conscious of the feelings of the all-males? Of course. But I don't think
that allowing the discrimination to go on indefinitely is the answer.
Chris Stromberg
